Ogallala Community Hospital developing a Culture of Safety
OGALLALA, Neb. (Dec. 14, 2009)--Since a landmark 1999 federal report that as many as 98,000 people die each year in hospitals because of medical errors, Nebraska hospitals, including Ogallala Community Hospital, have worked to develop a culture of safety at their facilities.
Ogallala Community Hospital has adopted a variety of technologies and practices that support safer care, including:
- electronic health records and prescription order systems with embedded systems to alert clinicians to potential dangers
- bedrails and monitors to alert the nursing staff to prevent patient falls
- a Safe Patient Movement and Handling program to ensure safe patient transfers
- conduct an annual Culture of Safety survey of all staff members
- reduced medical imaging turnaround times in order to expedite patient diagnosis
- Pyxis system for safe storage of medications and availability
- Time-out process prior to invasive procedures
- Conduct thorough root cause analysis of errors
As part of its ongoing quality improvement program, Ogallala Community Hospital surveys our patients about their hospital experience. This survey provides insight into the patient’s perception of the care; Ogallala is consistently meeting Banner Health system targets for patient experience initiatives.
Ogallala also relies on the Clinical Outcomes Measurement System to identify selected outcomes of care—length of stay, mortality and readmission rates—and compare Ogallala to other Nebraska hospitals. This allows us to identify what can be done to improve our quality of care. Using this information, along with the information provided by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare Web site, we can look at how our processes can affect our outcomes.
About Ogallala Community Hospital
Founded in 1952, our 18-bed critical access hospital strives to meet the health care needs of western Nebraska.
